McCall reflects on 4-1 home win

Manager Stuart McCall praised the courage and character of his team as they defeated Southend United 4-1 at Glanford Park on Tuesday night.

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The hosts bounced back from Saturday’s disappointing 1-0 home loss to Bristol Rovers, which made it three defeats in four, to see off the threat of the Shrimpers, who had gone ahead through Simon Cox inside the opening minutes.

Tom Pearce, Tony McMahon, George Thomas and James Perch scored the goals as Scunthorpe returned to winning ways with their most emphatic victory of the season so far.

McCall told iFollow Iron: “We’re delighted with the three points. We spoke to the lads about trying to make a really bright start and get on top of the game, so you can imagine with two minutes gone I wasn’t best pleased.

“Then we had some really good chances, with some good passing moves and terrific link-up play. We got a little bit of fortune with Tom’s cross-shot ending up in the back of the net. We deserved it though and pushed on from there.

“We told the players they had to keep believing in each other, even if it got to 90+ minutes and was still 1-1 because it needed a bit of courage and character after the result we had on Saturday and to go down so early in this game.

“The second goal saw Macca get in there somehow to score, and the third was a really good move with Novs (Lee Novak) knocking it down to George. He’s good at arriving in the box and thankfully he managed to finish it.

“The fourth goal was a great delivery from Macca and we’ve been on at Perchy to score more goals from set-plays.

“Southend are a big big side and we didn’t have Kyle (Wootton) in there tonight defensively for us, but we saw the game out and it was a valuable three points.

“The all-round performance, desire and determination from the players was great, and we also played some decent stuff at times. We see it every day in training that we have some good players here, but I said before the game tonight that this was about who wants it most because both teams were on difficult runs.

“The players showed desire. It’s difficult at times when things aren’t going your way but you have to stick together and battle it through. Now we have nine big games left and just want to start putting points on the board.

“We’re pleased but the focus now is straight onto Saturday (away at Portsmouth).”

Levi Sutton was withdrawn at half-time, with Clayton Lewis coming on, and McCall explained: “Levi tweaked his groin five minutes before half-time. I knew from the Under-23s games we’ve had that I could trust Clayton. It’s a tight game, he gets about the park, has a good left foot and deserved his chance. Levi’s landed and twisted, and I think he’ll be a major doubt for Saturday. We’ll see what it’s like over the next 24 hours, but it might be a couple of weeks with it being his groin.”

United's next home game sees them host AFC Wimbledon on Saturday, March 30th and tickets can be bought now from www.sufctickets.com.